Go to Community News and Events page for news on natural and cultural heritage events happening in the community and surrounding regions.

KHC's Legacy newsletter, July 2010, is now available for download! Click here for the newsletter.

October 28-30, 2010: Ontario Land Trust Alliance 2010 Gathering: The OLTA gathering will take place at Holiday Inn in Peterborough, Ontario. This year there will also be a cultural heritage stream including sessions on branding/communications, project development, cultural heritage 101, heritage walk and Canadian Canoe Museum tour. Land Trust related themes include Land Acquisition; Land Stewardship and Management; Funding; Marketing and Communications; Cultural heritage and Administration; and Land Use Planning for land trusts. For more informaiton and registration, please visit http://www.olta.ca/

October 2010:  Art and Photo contest/Exhibit: KHC will be hosting an art and photo contest and exhibit that showcases natural and cultural landscapes and features of the Kawarthas. Details will be posted in August.

August 13, 14 and 15, 2010: Peterborough Exhibition (Agricultural Pavilion): KHC had an exhibit in the Agricultural Pavilion at the Peterborough Exhibition held at Morrow Park in Peterborough. KHC along with other exhibitors showcased the rich agricultural traditions and rural heritage of the land.

August 05, 2010: "Collecting Voices: Oral History Workshop": As part of our capacity building series, KHC hosted a free three hour oral history workshop on Thursday, August 5. We had a great response and turn out with representatives from five historical societies, City of Peterborough, Parks Canada, and Fleming College. Julia Lum and Emily Beliveau from the Multicultural Historical Society of Ontario (http://www.mhso.ca/index.html) were responsible for running the excellent workshop. The workshop covered topics, among others, on how to conduct interviews, interview ethics, multi-media, listening and interview exercises, and working with photographs.

August 04, 2010: Annual General Meeting: KHC held its Annual General Meeting at the Peterborough Public Library.

July 27, 2010: Students' Skills Showcased at Annual Open House: Corey Witham and Mike Kyffin's GIS shoreline modeling project for KHC, and those of other students at Fleming College, was portrayed in mykawartha.com, a local newspaper.  The article can be found at: http://www.mykawartha.com/MyKawartha/Article/840127

July 22, 23, and 24, 2010: Mike Hendren Supports Partner Land Trust in Northern Ontario, Kensington Conservancy: KHC is a member of The Ontario Land Trust Alliance (OLTA) and Mike Hendren, Executive Director, is a current board member and member of the Government Relations Team. The Kensington Conservancy is located on the North Channel of Lake Huron, west of Sault Ste Marie and focuses on the area surrounding Desbarats, Ontario. Mike, along with the OLTA Executive Director, Ian MacNab, Canadian Land Trust Alliance (CLTA) Board Member Angus McLeod, as well as alliance members, supporters and board members of Kensington Conservancy and other delegates attended three days of land trust festivities. Activities were organized around recognizing and celebrating the heritage of the region including kayaking, hiking the trails of Kensington Conservancy properties, visiting the farmers market featuring local Mennonite crafts and foods, and attending a Green Expo focused on northern Ontario.

June 22, 2010: Significant Shoreline Model GIS Project: Corey Witham and Mike Kyffin, students from the Geomatics Institute at Fleming College, completed a significant shoreline model GIS project for KHC. The model will allow KHC to identify where shorelines may still exist in a natural state (i.e free of residential or commercial development, free of roads and engineered water access) within the Kawartha Bioregion (County of Peterborough and the City of Kawatha Lakes). Their work and those of other students was The presentation poster will be available here soon.

June 11-13, 2010: 2010 Ontario Heritage Conference. Suresh attended the 2010 Ontario Heritage Conference in Chatham-Kent. The conference was themed ‘Rural Roots, Rural Routes: 200 Years of Rural Architecture'. Barns such as the one featured on the photo below near Ridgetown are a threatened rural cultural heritage feature. Click here for more info... about the conference.

June 9, 2010: Media Release- Request for Cultural Heritage Related Proposals. Trent Centre for Community-Based Education (TCCBE) and Kawartha Heritage Conservancy (KHC) is inviting local organizations to propose community-inspired projects related to cultural/heritage tourism, arts education, heritage preservation and archaeology, cultural diversity and aboriginal engagement. This initiative is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Culture’s Cultural Strategic Investment Fund (CSIF). Please note that the proposal submission deadline is August 13. Please contact Christie Nash at 705-743-0523 (TCCBE) for project information. Please see our press release for more information.

May 28, 2010: Wetlands: value for us all. Mike Hendren wrote to the Lakefield Herald on the importance of wetlands and the need to take measures to conserve them as they become increasingly vulnerable to human impacts. Highlighting KHC's role, he writes that "As a non-profit charity, our organization, the Kawartha Heritage Conservancy has a specific mandate of wetland conservation, taking a very proactive, pragmatic approach. We have already secured the conservation of large, significant wetlands in the Kawarthas through donations of conservation easement and ownership including the protection of 140 acres on Stoney Lake. In addition, we currently have a partnership with Ducks Unlimited for another 700+ acres in the neighbouring City of Kawartha Lakes and we are working on a variety of related projects with interested landowners in the greater Kawarthas region." Read the article on-line or download it as a PDF.

May 16, 2010: Sheddon Historical Society AGM. Suresh attended the society's AGM at the Lion's Hall in Coboconk. The talk by guest speaker, Dorothy Duncan, on hertiage foods titled "Canadians at Table: Food, Fellowship & Folklore" was quite facinating. Suresh got to sample food made from recipies from the 1800s. It is incredible what early settlers did with so little. Dorothy is an author and international lecturer on Canada's culinary history.

May 15, 2010: Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill (1855-1935): Mike Hendren attended the unveiling of a provincial plaque commemorating Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill (founder of the Canadian Navy) on May 15 in Portland, Ontario, on the Rideau Canal (click here for the media release).  Although a little out of our area in Eastern Ontario, Mike was invited by Thomas H.B. Symons (founding President of Trent and currently Chair of the Ontario Heritage Trust) to attend the event and network with heritage groups on the Rideau Canal, which has a well established Heritage Network. Mike took this opportunity to connect with key individuals, which would be beneficial to our role on the newly formed Trent-Severn Waterway Heritage Network steering committee.

May 2, 2010: Tree Planting at McKim-Garsonnin Property: Volunteers from the Kawartha Field Naturalists and Kawartha Heritage Conservancy planted more than 500 trees, which included white pine and larch, at Ralph McKim and Jean Garsonnin's property. The Conservancy has had an active role in a variety of conservation activities in collaboration with landowners Ralph and Jean on their 240 acre (97 ha) property on the Oak Ridges Moraine near Bethany in the City of Kawartha Lakes.

April 24, 2010: Appraisal Institute of Canada Conference: Mike Hendren, the Executive Director, spoke at the 2010 Conference and Annual General Meeting of the Appraisal Institute of Canada about land trusts in Ontario with reference to the appraisal process and reliance on and challenges in giving value to conservation land.

April 24, 2010: Green Expo 2010: KHC was among the more than 60 exhibitors at the Green Expo 2010 held in Peterborough. Suresh and Lawrie had a wonderful time meeting and talking with the many visitors about our work and how important it is to conserve our natural and cultural heritage. Thanks to the students at Fleming College MMC program, we were able to show case the exhibit titled "Local Heritage, Local Food, and Local Choice", which incidently was one of the themes at the Expo.

April 24, 2010: Tree Planting at Mrs. Sharpe's Property: As part of our stewardship initiative, KHC board member, Debbie Mack, organized and planted approximately 60 samplings at the Dance Nature Conservancy, a property donated by Mrs. Alice Sharpe in 2006.

April 16, 2010: MMC-KHC Exhibit: Students from Fleming College's Museum Management and Curatorship Program, in partnership with Kawartha Heritage Conservancy, presenting an exhibit titled "Local Heritage, Local Food, Local Choice" at the Fleming College Sutherland Campus. Kudos to the students and faculty for an excellent exhibit. The exhibit showcased the rich history of local farming practice and industry as well as the need to support local food. Interested heritage related organizations are welcome to borrow the exhibit for display at their events or at their centres. Please contact us for more details. Click here to see the travelling exhibit poster.

April 6, 2010: New Program Manager: Suresh (VK) joined KHC as the new Program Manager. Check out his profile in our "Staff Profiles" page.

February 2010: New Members of the Board: We are excited to welcome Diane Wolf, Steven Bark, and John Platt as new Directors of the Board.

January 2010: Executive Director: Mike Hendren took over as the Executive Director of KHC from Ian Attridge in January. Ian Attridge, a founding member and long-time executive director of KHC, is away on sabbatical and travel adventures.

On-going Projects
Heritage Engagement Survey:

We are currently preparing an on-line survery, as part of our heritage engagement project funded by a grant from Trillium Foundation, in order to connect with the many heritage related organizations in the Kawartha Bioregion and to help us better understand the heritage data and mapping capacity and needs in the region. The heritage engagement project is meant to facilitate communication and sharing of heritage information with citizens and organizations.

Habitat Stewarship Project: Species at Risk:

Lawrie Keillor-Faulkner, our information management consultant, on sabbatical from Fleming College, is currently completing a Habitat Stewardship Project which involves collecting data on species at risk sightings, particularly birds and reptiles, and mapping them using geographic information systems (GIS) software.